Industry Gamers this morning reported Take-Two's confirmation of the job losses. "These reductions will not affect 2K Sports' ability to create and deliver AAA titles, including its upcoming release of NBA 2K11," Take-Two spokesman Alan Lewis said in a statement.

A source with knowledge of the situation told Kotaku that this was mostly a routine downsizing; studios typically drop staff after a product ships, usually in its quality assurance ranks. In this case, Visual Concepts had not cut staff after MLB 2K10 released in March; NHL 2K11 will ship on Aug. 24. Most of the cuts came from those two projects.

While the position losses seem dramatic in terms of numbers, they do not necessarily mean the end of NHL 2K. It did not lose any key positions in this downsizing, the source said. The NHL franchise was scaled back to a Wii-only release this year.